Put Asunder
by emeraldarrows
Summary: A partnership is a lot like marriage. For better or for worse, till death do you part.


**_Put Asunder_**

 _"Some people put walls up, not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to knock them down."-Socrates_

I.

A partnership is a lot like marriage. For better or for worse, till death do you part. You see the best and the worst of each other, hours withstanding torture, nightmares and admissions of fears in the midst of fevers. You protect your partner, and he you, often straining at the end of the leash you're kept on to do so, ignoring the command that he is as expendable as you know yourself to be.

He doesn't always feel that way, of course. In the beginning, he's distant and cold, with distrustful eyes that are always hooded, always watching, with the sort of lean and hungry look in his slight build that Shakespeare might have pictured for his character, had he spent Russian winters wanting and frigid. The other agents eye him with barely masked suspicion, hardly concealed hostility, and if it bothers him he's careful not to show it.

His partner is selected for him - not so much carefully, he suspects, but rather from the unfortunate few who haven't managed to beg, insist, or bargain their way out of working with him. A top agent, the file says, but one just released from the hospital after an assignment that left two other agents dead.

Napoleon Solo is not what he's expecting. His eyes are too kind, his voice too soft. There's no judgment in his steady gaze, no hesitation in offering his hand. He looks like the sort of man the KGB would have broken in mere days, the kind to crack under torture.

 _Stranger._ Illya thinks, and wonders faintly whether he'll end up putting a bullet in him before long. 

II.

They've been partners three months when an assignment falls apart at the seams, and they end up in something hopefully considered a safe house, with their communicators missing or broken, a stack of important papers in a locked briefcase clenched in Illya's hand, and a bullet wound in Solo's side that refuses to stop bleeding.

"You need a doctor." The words come out more sharply that he'd intended, more accusation than kindness, and Solo's eyes, red-rimmed from lack of sleep, lift slowly. His head nods, almost to himself, a stray shock of hair tumbling over his forehead, making him look even weaker and more vulnerable. Illya bites the inside of his cheek, distancing himself.

"You should go." Solo says, and his voice is startling faint, even threaded with the confidence he always seem to ooze - Solo's luck, the other agents call it, and even Illya admits a grudging amount of respect for the man's pluck, still managing to sound commanding and in complete control with his blood steadily leaking between his slightly trembling fingers. "Complete the mission."

Illya nods, curtly, but his feet refuse to move. Perhaps its the lack of desire to be forced to have a new partner, or just the waste of letting a good agent bleed out on a hard floor in the middle of nowhere. He kneels, pushing Solo's hand away with little effort, reaching for his suit jacket to tie it into a makeshift tourniquet, and tugging it tight. Solo's breath catches sharply.

"Illya..." He murmurs, and Illya tightens his mouth, ignoring the way Solo continues to mispronounce his name, as he hauls him upright, yanking an arm over his shoulder. Solo is trembling, he can feel it now, violent tremors running through his whole body, and through the fabric of his shirt he can feel the clammy chill of his skin as shock sets in. He steadies the briefcase in his other hand, dragging the other agent toward the door.

"Stay awake, Napoleon." He tells him sharply, and he barely notices the familiarity, the first time uttering the man's first name. "The bullet hit something vital."

If Solo hears him, he doesn't answer, and he's nearly dead weight by the time they reach the car. Illya shoves him into the passenger side, and steps on the gas.

The nearest doctor is a white-haired man with a soft Mississippi accent and a practice that Illya suspects treats more cows and pigs than human beings, certainly not a man hemorrhaging to death. But Solo is still breathing, so he manhandles him out of the car and onto the whitewashed porch, and finally inside the farmhouse, waving credentials at the startled doctor.

He keeps his hands over the wound, holding Solo's life inside, as the doctor hurriedly sets up his instruments. He's not certain when he started to care, only that somewhere between _indifference_ and _tolerance_ there was some flicker of warmth, of something that might be inching towards friendship. He studies Napoleon's pale, slack face, as the doctor moves to shoo him away.

"Live." He says quietly, barely above a whisper, and he doesn't think the man can even hear him, as far gone as he is. But Napoleon's eyelids twitch, opening a faint crack, and Illya swears that he says the ghost of a smile before his eyes close again.

Illya sits in the next room, the briefcase at his feet, waiting. He doesn't expect him to live - he's seen men die before, seen his family die long ago, and he recognizes the spectral form of death when its hovering over someone - but Napoleon is stronger than he looks and he clings to life.

Later, much later, when other agents have arrived, and the briefcase has been turned over to Mr. Waverly, he sits in a chair, watching the faint but steady rise and fall of Napoleon's chest beneath the covers.

 _Partner._ He thinks, and its strange in his mind, like everything in this country. But he thinks he could get used to it. 

III.

He's changed, he thinks, and if his younger, colder self could see him, he'd surely be aghast at how he's softened, let his guard down, let those carefully mortared walls slowly crumble. It's Napoleon to blame, he supposes, chipping away with teasing banter and half-hearted retorts to Illya's insults and wry jabs, patiently learning Russian words - still retaining a remarkably persistent inability to inflect Illya's name correctly, and he's long despaired of him ever learning to do so - and bringing in double or triple portions of lunch, only to feign a lack of interest and pass them to Illya. They work well together, so Mr. Waverly never considers switching partners on them, and after a while the other agents seem to begin to forget the strangeness of the Russian, as open loathing gives way to grudging respect of the man who saved U.N.C.L.E.'s top agent's life.

And not the only time, of course. There's more missions, blurring together as months turn into years, and its unquestioned, despite all the rules, that agents Kuryakin and Solo will save each other, and somehow manage to salvage the mission. There's more bullets, and blood lost, scars and safe houses, but in the midst, Illya thinks its the most peace he's ever had in his life, the most trust he's ever put in anyone.

 _Tovarich._ He teaches him the word from hospital beds, both recovering from a mission gone south. _Friend._

IV.

He's standing beside a grave site today, alone. His eyes stare at the rounded bit of earth, the sparse headstone. Not enough to mark the life of a man like Napoleon Solo, lacking the dramatic flair, and debonair style that made the man stand out in a crowd, and devoid of the warmth and charm that drew people to him.

Its a ruse, of course. There's no body beneath the ground, but a spy can't simply retire, and if Napoleon Solo the man was able to survive that long, Napoleon Solo the name will have to die to give him a life beyond U.N.C.L.E..

He senses him before he sees him, all those years of anticipating the other's movements, of knowing his thoughts before they were expressed. Illya lifts his head and Napoleon steps into view, head covered with a hat, face obscured with a beard and sunglasses.

"Illya." Heaven help him, he's going to miss the absurd way he mispronounces his name.

"You look well for a dead man." Illya says lightly, and a corner of his mouth lifts into a smile.

"Death suits me."

"You have plans, then?" Illya's voice is hushed, as if the trees are listening, complete with a THRUSHie perched on every branch. Napoleon shrugs.

"Italy. After that.." His gaze softens. "You stay safe. Five years...well, Italy isn't that big of a country."

There's a strange thickness in Illya's throat, and he can't seem to reply. Napoleon extends his hand. "Goodbye, tovarich."

Illya reaches, but he finds himself tugging Napoleon into a hug instead of a handshake, and he's back, all those years ago, in a country doctor's office with a man's lifeblood held in by his hands, and it scares him to think how close he came to never having brought him there at all, of losing the best friend he's ever had - the only friend, if he's honest - before he really knew him at all. Napoleon pulls back, and his eyes are misted, filled with that open kindness that he had there the first day they met. He smiles once, and then turns, walking to the car parked a short distance away.

Illya could call after him, ask him to stay and he would. He could ask Mr. Waverly for an exception to the rules. He even thinks he would grant it, because there's only five years until Illya is forty and would retire, too.

But he doesn't call. Because so many agents don't make it this far, and Napoleon deserves it, a safe life, a peaceful life, to let the scars fade. And because so much can happen in five years, so many wounds neither of them could heal from, too many risks, too many chances, a limit to that boundless luck, and the possibility of a loss from which Illya knows he could never recover.

So he stands silently, watching until Napoleon disappears from view, and finally vanishing as if he'd never been there at all.


End file.
